Xylophone: interesting facts, video, story, photo, listen

Musical Instrument: Xylophone

The French composer C. Saint-Saens, inspired by the engravings of the 15th century German artist Hans Holbein, wrote a symphonic poem with the frightening name "Death Dance". During the premiere performance of this work, some of the listeners were numb with fear, as if a really terrible skeleton with hollow orbits in the skull and with a rusty scythe danced a terrible dance, knocking with their bones. How did the composer manage so artistically to create an eerie image and achieve a similar effect? It is so frightening to portray such a character to the author with a musical instrument, whose name is xylophone.

Read the history of the xylophone and many interesting facts about this musical instrument on our page.

Sound

In order to figuratively describe the sound of a xylophone, one must certainly recall the works of the great Russian composer A. Lyadov, his symphonic pictures Kikimora and Baba Yaga, where the ominous clattering of terrible kikimora teeth is very expressively depicted, and a rapidly sweeping witch breaking in its wake dried branches. The inclusion of xylophone in the musical palette is usually associated with a particular plot or peculiar experiences. Due to the dryish, clicking a few bone color, the sound of this instrument is wonderfully used in visual designs. For example, the song of a squirrel gnawing nuts, in "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov commissioned precisely the xylophone.

Sometimes the timbre of the sound of the instrument brings a sullen mood, and sometimes gives rise to intricate, ugly-comic images, or melancholically sounds in the symphony No. 7 of D. Shostakovich, in the episode of "invasion".

The sound of the xylophone, which is largely dependent on the skill of the musician, can be very diverse: ominous, terrifying and piercing, or it can be bright, tender and soulful. On the "fort" xylophone sounds sharply and loudly, on the "piano" - warm and velvety.

Range The sound of the xylophone is quite wide - these are four octaves of musical sounds.

A photo:

Interesting Facts:

• Xylophone was very popular in the ragtime genre at the beginning of the twentieth century, as well as in the 70s of the last century, when the revival of the genre began.
• Until the 40s of the last century, the xylophone was very actively used in jazz groups, until it was replaced by a vibraphone, also the xylophone appeared regularly and was very popular in American musicals in the first half of the 20th century.
• In the African state of Senegal, xylophone is used in the rite of initiation of boys and girls.
• Xylophone is very often used in film production for scoring films in the horror genre.

• On the African continent, in many countries, the xylophone is recognized as a national instrument, it is played in groups, sometimes up to six instruments, both at holidays and at funerals.
• Xylophone is actively used in the sound of animated films, an example is the popular cartoon series "Flintstones".
• The peoples of Africa, there are so many varieties of xylophone, for example, there are giant xylophones on which 4 people play simultaneously.
• Famous xylophone player Green George Hamilton was instructed to voice the moving crew on his instrument in the first three cartoons of Walt Disney.
• The largest gaming xylophone is 8 m long, 2.5 m high and 2 m wide, it was made by B. Mamoto from Indonesia in 2009. Its weight was 3168 kg.
• In many African countries, the xylophone is used for practical purposes: they scare away monkeys, birds and other pests of gardens.

• The largest xylophone ensemble consisted of 1,223 participants and performed at the Maesa Tondano Stadium in Indonesia at the Festival of Culture and Art on October 31, 2009.
• Red Norvo was not only a popular actor, but also a famous xylophone player who was one of the first to introduce a xylophone into jazz.
• The American rock band "Violent Femmes" in 1982 recorded a clip in which the xylophone was the main instrument.
• In Asia, empty pumpkins are used as resonators for the xylophone.
• In the opera house xylophone was first used in the opera "Hansel and Gretel" by E. Humperdink in 1893.
• Hammers, which are played by xylophone players, are affectionately called "goat legs".
• For orchestras or individual instrumentalists, manufacturers of xylophones make instruments of various sizes - from small piccolos to large bass models.

Design

A modern xylophone is an instrument with a rather simple design consisting of a frame on which two rows of wooden bars are fixed, laid out like piano keys and having a certain pitch. The shorter the bar, the higher the sound and vice versa. Each key (bar) lies on a special soft pad, which is made of foam rubber.

The keys of the xylophone are cut out of rosewood, alder, rosewood, maple, walnut, which is kept for two years, then carefully treated. The keys have a standard size - 3.8 cm in width and 2.5 cm in thickness, the length depends on the required pitch. Then they are laid out at a certain distance and fastened with cords. Under the keys are placed special metal tubes, whose role is to increase the volume of the sound. These tubes are resonators that give volume to the sound and make it brighter and more saturated. They are very carefully processed and adjusted to the tone of the plate.

The player usually uses thin wooden sticks when playing, similar to small spoons that have plastic, rubber or wooden tips. The sticks are usually two, but depending on the professionalism of the musician, there may be 3 or 4. The xylophone player chooses the sticks and tips that are most appropriate for the nature of the music, to reproduce a certain sound mood.

A tool for professional performers, as a rule, is located on a special stand, the level of which varies depending on the position of the performer - sitting or standing.

Xylophone species

The xylophone family is very large and diverse - it is one of the most famous ethnic musical instruments. Every nation has its own xylophone. On the African, Asian, and American continents, xylophones exist in many different forms and with many names. Here are some of them:

• Balafon is popular in Angola, Guinea, Mali, Madagascar, Cameroon, Congo, Senegal, Gambia, Cote d'Ivoire.
• Timbil is a national tool of Mozambique.
• Mokkin - xylophone from Japan.
• Marimba is very common in Mexico and Central America.
• Vibraphone and bells (metallophones) - a kind of xylophone, the sound plates of which are made not of wood, but of metal - all these instruments share the same structure.

Application

For a very long time, the xylophone was used only in folk music, but after significant changes, the range of its use has grown significantly. Many orchestras - symphonic, pop, folk, brass, big band include in the repertoire of works that xylophone adorns with its sound. There are also ensembles that include only percussion instruments and xylophones, including. Today, these self-sufficient pitch instruments, their extraordinary sound, encourages musicians to form groups in which the performers play only on such a group of instruments. Among these is the Marimba Mix ensemble from St. Petersburg.

Currently, xylophone is used in various musical genres - it is folk, Latin American, classical music, ragtime, musical, jazz, sometimes even rock, etc.

Many composers used the pictorial sound of the xylophone in their compositions: D. Shostakovich in the ballet suite Golden Age, A. Khachaturian in the ballet Gayane (famous dance with sabers), I. Stravinsky in the ballet Petrushka, V. Oransky in the ballet "Three Fat Men", D. Klebanov in the ballet "Aistenok" and others.

The xylophone is quite often heard on stage as a solo instrument, and here the performers are very lucky, since masterpieces of great composers sound great on it, written for violin, flute, and piano. But still the xylophone was not left unattended. P. Creston, M. de Falla, A. Hovaness, D. Corigliano, S. Slonimsky, A. Aslamas, V. Blok, J. Delecluz, A. Jacques, B. Moshkov, D. Paliev, O. Chishko, E Khandzhiev and many others composed their works for him.

Artworks

A. Hovaness - Fantasy on Japanese Prints for Xylophone with Orchestra (listen)

E. Glenni - Concertino for xylophone with orchestra

Famous Performers

Performing virtuoso works on xylophone is available only to truly talented performers. The first virtuoso - a musician who fully revealed the technical and expressive capabilities of the instrument, and also seriously influenced the next generation of performers, was its creator, M. Guzkov

The successful development of performance on the xylophone was favored by the emergence of a whole galaxy of virtuoso musicians, among them: K. Mikheev, I. Troyanov, M. Eihhorn, M. Raskatov, M. Maslovsky, V. Shteiman, O. Khvedkevich, A. Emelyanov, N. Kurganova, V. Snegirev, A. Ogorodnikov, K. Fishkin, T. Egorova, E. Galoyan, Red Norvo, Green D. Hamilton, H. Breuer, B. Becker, E. Glenni, I. Finkel, A. Poddubny, A. Reshetova and many others.

Story

The history of the xylophone began a long time ago, about two thousand years BC. On the walls of ancient temples there are images of people playing music on instruments resembling xylophone in appearance. Art critics have heated debates about where the birthplace of this instrument is: some consider Africa, others Asia, and others intend to prove that Latin America has found an impressive number of simple xylophones on these continents.

There is still no definite information - it is only known that this instrument appeared in ancient times, and the first xylophone was simple wooden bars, which, when struck on them, made a pleasant sound to the human ear. Then the bars tied in a certain way and began to play music on them.

Different versions of xylophone have existed for many years in many cultures.

Ancient frescoes show that the instrument came to the European continent in the 15th century, but did not receive much distribution, remaining mainly a tool for wandering musicians. The design of the xylophone of the time was quite simple and represented interconnected bars of different lengths, which were quickly laid out on a flat surface. They played on it with the help of sticks, which were made of willow tree in the form of small spoons. The sound capabilities of the xylophone were very limited.

Only in the first half of the 19th century, the design of the instrument underwent dramatic changes. The xylophone was significantly transformed by the Belarusian dulcimer M. Guzikov, who increased the range of the instrument to two and a half octaves of the chromatic scale, adding the number of plates and arranging them in a certain order in 4 rows. The appearance of the instrument changed, the sound became the most intense and pleasant, since the sound plates were placed on straw tubes that served as a sound resonator. This design became the basis of the current xylophone and has been used for a hundred years later.

After significant changes in the design, composers and professional musicians paid special attention to the instrument. The xylophone became part of the symphony orchestra, and later went to the concert stage, becoming a solo instrument. Problems with the repertoire for xylophone solo performances were solved in a certain way: various transcriptions and transcriptions of popular works were made.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the xylophone design underwent a number of significant changes, from a four-row it was transformed into a two-row one. Bars settled down like piano keys, the range increased by half an octave, which increased the instrument's capabilities and made practically the entire violin repertoire available for performance.

Xylophone is a very significant and favorite instrument in the whole world. Music enthusiasts hope that the popularity of the xylophone will grow from year to year, and it will undoubtedly be a valuable member of the orchestra due to its unique sound. He makes up the world cultural heritage and parades with a man through time, bringing joy and peace to his life.